


Only  A Look

by Jenwryn



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Denial, M/M, Marauders' Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-08
Updated: 2008-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only a look, but a look was all he'd needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only  A Look

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tierfal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/gifts).



> For [Tierfal](http://tierfal.livejournal.com), wishing her a very happy birthday. I have a great deal of difficulty believing that I've only known you since about May, and utterly no idea how I managed before that. Love you, sweetie!

> _I heard the old man say, we need the rain,  
> And I can feel it in my bones; they're aching.  
> I watch the sky, and wait, and wish these waters ease my pain  
> Because my will is breaking_.
> 
> ~ Mae, "Release Me"

 

It was only a look, but then, a look was all that was needed. Which makes it sound simpler than it actually was, of course, when, in reality, it wasn’t simple at all. Nothing had been, not since Second Year. Really, though, Remus was pretty sure that he’d kept that knowledge buried deep inside his own head – pretty sure he’d never shown so much as a hint of what it did to him when they brushed hands by accident, or how it made him ache when he saw _him_ with girls. Not that Sirius ever kept a girl for long, sometimes barely two days running, but still. And so, he’d never thought—

But then, the _look_…

It was a miserable autumn morning and, outside, the world was a flurry of wetness, as though the lake had upped itself and moved closer to the castle confines. Their hot breakfasts steamed into their faces, and James kept muttering and wiping his glasses on his sleeve, and Peter kept sneezing on James, who hit him on the back of the head for it, not hard, really, but Pete had had his spoon in his hand at the time and the jolt had sent its contents flying into the lap of Mary McDonald, who’d started carrying on as though the end of the world had come, announced by porridge instead of four horsemen, and _that_, of course, had set off Lily Evans who’d begun squarking at James, while Peter just sat there in the middle of it with runny eyes. And then, amongst the screeching and the sneezing and the waving of James’ glasses – the look. Remus had been just about to bite his toast when Sirius had turned towards him through din, eyes grey and laughing, brows slightly lifted in McGonagall’s direction as she strode over_. _Oh, that wasn’t _the _look. _The _look came a few seconds later when, whilst doing his best to _not _listen to a tower of righteous early-morning anger deduct points from her own House, Sirius had leant in to say something, and so had Remus, and they’d neither of them managed to get out a word because James had shoved Sirius when he stood up in a sulk to get away from the smirking Lily, and the shove had pushed Sirius forwards along the bench until his and Remus’s foreheads had actually met. For an eternal second,or so, they’d just stayed there like that, and Remus could smell the warm milkiness of Sirius’s breath, and the sweet stickiness of his own marmalade-ish version coming back at him, and of course that wasn’t _really_ the Look either because when you’re that close you go cross-eyed if you try to focus on any one particular thing, and so, without thinking, Remus had shut his eyes and just inhaled the smell of Sirius, and felt the warmth coming off his skin, and his hair tickling at his face. All in a second, of course, but an ever-so-long second. Remus couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt Sirius’s skin, in human form, anyway. Not since early in Third Year, that was for sure. Not that they avoided each other, exactly, because, oh, there was slapping-on-the-back and whatnot, but not warm skin on warm skin, not—

It only lasted one blink, two blinks, three blinks of an eye. But it caused the Look. Remus almost missed it, actually, because he'd had his eyes shut, but he’d caught it through his opening lashes as he’d felt the pressure of Sirius’s knees leave his own: the expression on Sirius’s face as he’d moved his head back and gazed at Remus.

Remus’s breath had caught. He knew that look. He knew it well. It was the expression he saw on his own face in windows sometimes, glass reflecting darkly back at him, and achingly, and—

Like a bolt from the blue, he _knew._

And, like a blot from the blue gone terribly wrong, the fear that rolled and lurched inside Remus sent him scrambling to his feet, and snatching up his satchel, and hurtling across the Great Hall to catch up with James and rush to class. He’d half thought that Sirius would call him back, actually, so much so that he’d almost paused at the door to turn and look. But he didn’t.

Class was agony.

It was Transfiguration and of course McGonagall was pissed at them, and Lily Evans was pissed at them, and half of Gryffindor was pissed at them, all for losing points before breakfast was even finished, as if that were something they managed to do on a regular basis – which perhaps it was. And Remus was trying to work, and was failing miserably, because Sirius, damn him to hell and back, had seized the seat beside him, and it was just as well they were only doing theory because, as it was, Remus kept blotting his ink into forms that a psychoanalyst could make use of, and he could only imagine how spectacularly he’d screw up wand-work. It mightn’t have been so bad if Sirius’s elbow hadn’t kept brushing up and down Remus’s arm. Maybe he could even have swallowed that, if the elbow’s owner hadn’t kept shooting him odd little heavy glances like a boy who’s just experienced an epiphany.

Remus had escaped as soon as class was over, literally grabbing his bag and pelting out of the room before McGonagall had even finished giving them permission to leave. He didn’t think about the fact that that had only been the first lesson for the day – all he knew was that he needed _out_, out and gone, out and fresh air, out and _now_. It was all quite unlike him.

He’d ended up in the Owlery, of all places.

Remus had almost started to breathe again when, because the universe was a sadist, the door opened and let in a crack of dull rain-driven light into the honeyed dinge of the Owlery, and Sirius’s voice had asked, “You in here, Moony?”

_Bugger, damn and hang it all. _He’d rather felt like hiding in a corner but, in the end, had decided that Sirius would find him anyway and that that would be pathetic beyond belief, even for him. So he'd frowned, and shrugged, and risen to his feet from where he'd been sitting on the straw, and feathers, and owl shit, and said, “Yeah.”

“Posting a letter, were you?” asked Sirius as he appeared in the section where Remus stood, the pale lamp above them sending the latter’s hair even more coppery than usual. “Something urgent, was it? You know we’ve got Defence Against the Dark Arts, right?”

Remus decided that_ none _of those questions were worthy of an answer.

The other boy glanced around at the quietly shuffling owls and then said, with a shrug, “Nice spot to get out of the bloody rain, I guess. Though, frankly, I expected to find you in the library.”

A small smile slid into Remus’s eyes, despite himself, and he rubbed at his face, as though to get rid of it. Then he sighed. “Pomfrey knows all our time-tables.”

Sirius made a small ‘oh’ noise. He began to wander back and forth, looking at the owls, observing, quite conversationally, “You know, James reckons you’re in a snit ’cause he lost us House points. Pete, on the other hand, thinks you’re annoyed at the _injustice _of the loss of said House points.” Sirius stopped and pointed at a golden coloured owl with speckles. “Nice bird,” he added absurdly.

Remus raised his eyebrows.

Sirius turned and looked at him, shrugging. “That’s what they reckon.”

It was clear that some kind of response was required. Remus even knew exactly what the expected response was, he was supposed to go, _oh, and so what do you think?, _but he’d be damned if after all these years of ignoring the game, that he was going to play now just because Sirius had had some miraculous revelation. Because it was all too stupid. Too stupid and too impossible and too risky. They were friends. You don’t mess with that. Sirius was messing because Sirius had never been capable of knowing when to leave well enough alone, which was sort of endearing in its own way, but potentially a royal pain in the arse. And Remus didn’t believe that Sirius had even the vaguest idea of what the game actually was in the first place, not _really_. You couldn’t comprehend all the rules in a moment of spilt porridge, could you? _Could_ you?

It was even more frightening to imagine that perhaps you could.

Sirius was looking at him again. Wide-eyed, intent… fascinated. No, surely not fascinated. Not by _him_.

Oh. That was the answer. It was all in Remus’s head. Of _course._

Swimming in the bow wave of that liberating realisation, Remus shrugged, and proffered up the expected response: “Really? And what’s your enlightening theory as to why I’m traipsing out here in the shit weather?”

Sirius’s eyes didn’t leave his face. “I reckon you’re avoiding me.”

_Oh Merlin._ A weak laugh escaped Remus. “And why would I do that?”

Sirius’s eyes just stayed fixed upon him.

Remus frowned, then sighed again, a slight plea caught up in the curl of his exhaled breath. “You’re being stupid, Padfoot. Let’s go back to the castle, eh? If we get to Defence Against the Dark Arts now we might lose some more points, but at least we’ll avoid detention.” He started walking to the door.

Sirius’s hand snapped out and grabbed his wrist. The warmth of it against Remus's thin arm, cold from being outside for longer than Sirius had, shot up through him and made his brain stutter. The hand pulled at his arm, made him turn, made him look, made him fall into the grey eyes intent on his. _Merlin, but it hurt inside._

“Don’t,” Remus begged without meaning to, the words escaping him, broken from depths he’d tried to pretend he didn’t have. “Please don’t.”

The world drew to a quiet pause around them. There was no missed class, there was no Hogwarts, there was nothing but the rustle of feathers on feathers and, outside, the dull rain falling in a curtain of cold, and, inside, the rocking pain of Remus’s heart clenched in his chest, and the expression, oh Merlin, the expression on Sirius’s face.

“Don’t what?” murmured Sirius, the bastard, in a tone that almost killed Remus dead on the spot.

“Ruin things,” whispered Remus, strangled. “Bend things, break things, the world’s fine as it is, don’t complicate it, don’t—” he paused, panicked at the words pouring out of him unbidden, panicked at the knowing smile on Sirius’s face. “You don’t understand what you’re doing, Sirius," he finished, loathing the plaintive whine in his voice, but unable to prevent it.

“Yes, I do,” said the other, and the hand reeled him in further, until they were as close as they’d been at breakfast. Sirius put his forehead against Remus’s and again, again, there it was: the warmth of skin and the sway of hair and now, now a hand on his wrist and a hand on his shoulder, and, for the love of Merlin, fingers playing at the collar of his school robes, oh—

“What’re you doing?” managed Remus, incapable by that point of thinking how irrational the question was in light of his previous statement, which had presupposed that Sirius didn’t know; incapable, in fact, by that point, of just about anything.

“I’m thinking,” answered Sirius quietly.

“What?”__

“Mmm, not what you expected me to say, was it?” Sirius’s hand on Remus's wrist slid up past his elbow, up beneath the loose sleeve of his robes, and set the skin aflame. The hand at his collar tipped half over its edge and brushed, ever so softly, against Remus's neck. He shiver-shuddered at the touch and fought inside, trapped between the urge to pull away, and the desire to press against it. He shut his eyes for paranoid fear of what his soul was saying through them.

“I'm thinking, you know,” murmured Sirius in a deep voice, “that you have absolutely no idea, not  the slightest, of how long I’ve wanted to do this, do you?”

And the hand dropped right over the collar and traced along Remus’s throat, sliding, creeping, smoothing upwards to his jaw and onto his face. Remus let out a small, unwilling moan and squeezed his eyes tighter shut. _Oh shit._

Fingertips slid sideways to the edge of his mouth.

“I don’t think we’ve touched,” continued Sirius in an infuriatingly calm, musing voice, “since Second Year. You know, I thought that was because you _knew. _I thought it was because you knew, and you were trying not to hurt my feelings. I thought you were being fucking _kind _to me, would you believe it? But then,” the fingers traced above Remus’s upper lip, “then I saw your face at breakfast and – and tell me I didn’t imagine it, Moony.” He dropped his fingers onto Remus’s lips and, at their light, curious, arrogantly self-sure touch, Remus struggled to keep his mouth shut, struggled to keep his mind in some semblance of functionality, struggled to process the words he’d heard, the impossible, incredible, magnificent words. Then he opened his lips to speak, and Sirius’s fingers crept in against his lips and that was the end of Remus, and he kissed him, kissed them, kissed each of those searching fingertips.

Before stepping backwards out of their reach, away and terrified, his eyes snapping open as he stared at Sirius, who just kept bloody gazing back at him as though he’d dropped from heaven gold-plated.

The hand reeled him in again, softer now.

“Tell me I didn’t imagine what I read on your face, Remus. I know I couldn’t have, know you wouldn’t still be standing here if I had,” pressed Sirius again. “Tell me that you wanted….” He fell silent. Maybe it was too much for even him to say aloud. Saying it aloud would make it real, and if it were real then they could never go back to how it was before.

“It’ll all change,” managed Remus hoarsely as Sirius’s hand made its way back onto his face, creeping up to play at his hairline, as though it had no connection to the rest of the boy but acted of its own volition. Still, even as the words left Remus’s mouth he knew it was already too late, because it had already changed; the rug had been pulled from beneath his feet and he’d been left floundering in a half honeyed light filled with lazily falling feathers, and Sirius’s goddamn beautiful eyes. Remus gave up trying to remember how to breathe and just hoped his lungs would work it out for themselves. He leant in against the hand on his face and said simply, “You didn’t imagine it. I need you.”

The words sounded foreign to his own ears. The voice was not his own, it was too calm, as though all the years of mingled hope and fear had slipped away to the straw on the ground. And then Sirius was kissing him, or he was kissing Sirius, and the worry about that, too, evaporated beneath the realisation that he might not have the faintest idea what he was doing, but it didn’t matter, because Sirius did, and he seemed not to care that Remus didn’t, just pulled back for a second, and half-smiled, and stroked his face, and then leant in again and taught him of lips and mouths and tongues and teeth, and the shocking wetness of it all, and the strangeness, and the unquestioning loveliness, with the hand at the back of his neck pulling him in closer, and the other moving up and down his backbone as though Remus were an instrument and Sirius were its player, and probably that wasn’t such a bad analogy at all.

Not that Remus was thinking much about analogies.

He wasn’t thinking much at all.

Sure, he did spare a thought that he owed James, and McGonagall, and Mary, and whoever had picked porridge for breakfast.

But it was a very small thought.

Very small indeed.


End file.
